


Due Donne a Roma

by Castillon02



Series: Bond Women Loving Women [4]
Category: James Bond (Craig movies), SPECTRE (2015)
Genre: Dancing, F/F, Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-06
Updated: 2016-08-06
Packaged: 2018-07-28 22:42:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,070
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7659730
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Castillon02/pseuds/Castillon02
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>MI6 and Lucia Sciarra both need the Spectre goons in Rome to go away. They work out a deal that involves Moneypenny.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Due Donne a Roma

**Author's Note:**

> For the Moneypenny/Lucia Sciarra spot on the 007 Fest femslash prompt card. Thank you to @timetospy and @beginte for helping me with Lucia!

“Wait, why aren’t you sending him, sir?” Moneypenny asked, jerking her head in Bond’s direction. “He seemed to do well enough with her.”  

Bond smirked.

M sighed and said, “I know it isn’t ideal, but Sciarra is requesting that a woman who isn’t a field agent escort her to the gala, perhaps because she believes we will do our best to protect you if not her. You’re our highest-qualified candidate for the mission. We need her to draw out and identify the men of Spectre whom she saw her husband working with, and we need you to keep her safe and make sure she isn’t setting us up to run after a load of red herrings. If all goes well, you’ll be with Sciarra for less than twenty-four hours. Can you do it?”

Moneypenny narrowed her eyes. “What’s my backup like?” It would be fun to get back into her field agent shoes, but she wasn’t about to dodge a bunch of bullets on a solo operation like she was some sort of 00.

“You’ll have Bond and several local agents at your disposal,” M said. He added, “I’ll expect you back by Tuesday.”

The Gala was on a Saturday. A two-day holiday in Rome after the mission clinched the deal; perhaps this was M’s way of making up for forgetting her birthday. “All right then,” Moneypenny said. “Lucia Sciarra, here I come.”

“Excellent,” M said, giving her a relieved smile. “You may report to Q Branch to pick up your supplies.”

***

“Welcome, Ms. Moneypenny. Call me Lucia,” Lucia said, waving her CIA bodyguards away and welcoming Moneypenny into the entryway of her country safe house, a warm-wooded chalet with very small windows. She was perhaps ten years older than Moneypenny, and in the fantastic red gown she was wearing she looked as sleek and predacious as a mink—the very picture of a widow emerging from mourning.

Moneypenny had dressed in gold; they would complement each other well.

Lucia looked her up and down. " _Bene_ ," she said. "Perhaps I will survive the night after all.” She gave a grim smile. “You might even do the same.”   

Given the fact that this would be her first public appearance since the start of a string of numerous assassination attempts, Moneypenny couldn’t blame Lucia for her low expectations. However, they wouldn’t get anywhere if they operated with more doubts than confidence. “We’ll both come out on top tonight as long as we work together,” she told Lucia. She held her hand out. “Think we can do it?”  

Lucia took her hand, but instead of shaking it, she raised their arms to the side, stepped in close, and wrapped her other arm, probably the arm of a killer, around Moneypenny’s waist. “That depends,” Lucia said, “on how well you can dance.” Her dark eyes met Moneypenny’s from only inches away. Her hand was warm on the small of Moneypenny’s back, resting low enough to be suggestive but high enough to maintain decorum.  

Dancing. Right. Moneypenny had been briefed on both the gala’s requirements and Lucia’s bisexuality. She relaxed out of her stiff posture and clasped her free hand around Lucia’s shoulder, completing the closed waltz position. “If you lead, I can follow,” she said. “But can you do the same when it’s called for?”

Lucia raised her eyebrows. “When you’re a woman with my experiences, you very quickly learn to be versatile.”

“Versatile,” Moneypenny repeated, amused. “That’s one word for it.”

Lucia, still holding her hand, led her out of the entranceway and into a large room where narrow slitted skylights provided a cozy amount of natural light. “We have a little time before the gala, I believe. Would you like to practice?” Her gaze encompassed the long hardwood floor, entirely adequate for perfecting their waltz. “Or would you like to…get to know each other a little better?” Her eyes flicked to the dark sofa in the far corner of the room, which looked as though it was the kind of soft that tried to suck you in and never let you go.

Moneypenny had always been a ‘both’ kind of woman.

***

They were fashionably late to the gala. Several times, Lucia whispered names into her earwig, and they danced close to dangerous men while Moneypenny, her hand on Lucia’s pulse, gauged the extent of Lucia’s fear. At one point she had to dip Lucia beneath the flight path of a needle that sank deep into the wall behind them. Her fingernails, coated in poison-detecting polish from Q Branch, turned blue when she dipped them into their champagne. Near the end of the night, she whirled Lucia around and blocked a knife with the bulletproof material sewn into the back of her gown, and Lucia took the lead and danced them away from the assailant before Moneypenny could forget her job and retaliate.

“We’ve made them angry,” Lucia said in her ear. “They’ll be easier prey now; no job at all for the man who killed my husband, yes?”

“He might break a sweat,” Moneypenny said, eyeing the multiple Spectre vultures who’d shown up with tuxedos on their skin and murder in their hearts.

“But not as beautifully as you,” Lucia said. 

“I’ll bet you say that to all of your gorgeous bodyguards cum insurance policies,” Moneypenny replied, swaying in her arms. 

Lucia gave her a sly, hungry smile, tightening her grip on Moneypenny’s waist.  

Moneypenny took Lucia home at the end of the night. She dodged Lucia’s invitations to join her in front of a mirror in the hall, suspicious of the keen glint in her eyes, but they revisited the sofa. Lucia eventually retired to her room, her red dress folded over one arm. Moneypenny stayed awake on the couch, listening to the CIA guards change shifts, making sure that none of those guards had been turned, making sure that Lucia didn’t come out of her bedroom with a knife.    

She didn’t, and they hadn’t. Leiter had chosen his guards well.

In the morning Moneypenny breakfasted with Lucia, and shortly after eleven a.m. she got the call that Bond had eliminated the most prominent bits of Spectre’s arm in Rome from Lucia’s concern.

“Buona fortuna, Donna Moneypenny,” Lucia said, seeing her to the door.

“Buona fortuna, Donna Lucia,” Moneypenny replied, and left. She had two more days in Rome, and she intended to see as much as she could.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading! Constructive criticism is welcome <3


End file.
